Try a little tenderness
by slickchick84
Summary: Prompt from fig-aruna. Piper and Alex's first kiss, where Alex has to work for it a bit! Vauseman paring, obviously.


**So this was a prompt from fig-aruna who wanted Piper and Alex's first kiss, but where Alex kind of has to work for it a bit, because Piper might be interested, but she isn't stupid! I don't know if this was exactly what she had in mind, but it's the best I could do. Hope you like it.**

**P.S – I recommend youtubing Otis Redding and just listening to his stuff while reading this. That's what I did while writing it;)**

Alex knows how to seduce a woman.

She knows just how to smile and when, knows how to tease and flirt, knows where to touch and how to flatter. So the fact that Piper just dances around her attentions with a smile and a quip frustrates her beyond belief. Alex knows how to do this. Has in actual fact made it her business to do this; to get beautiful young things to do whatever she pleases, but Piper is stubbornly refusing to give in to her. She hasn't even managed to steal a kiss, for God's sakes, and they've been doing this for three weeks.

What 'this' is, is becoming a little murkier than Alex likes though. She's a good judge of character, she has to be really, and at first glance Piper seemed like exactly every other person Alex has ever pulled in for a job. Piper is spoiled, self-involved and looking to take risks, solely because she's probably never had to do that before in her upper middleclass life and it's a thrill. So the thing with Piper should be easy, straight forward, but instead they spend most of their time together in second hand book stores hunting for classics, or arguing about war and politics in dank little coffee shops, not just bars and clubs, and Alex kind of loves it.

She loves that Piper has an opinion on absolutely everything, loves that she can be unapologetically insulting, but also earnestly sweet sometimes and it all throws her a bit. Mostly it just means that her failure to even kiss the girl stings all the more, because she actually wants it. Wants Piper. Not another mule or fuck buddy, just a girl with the prettiest blue eyes she's ever met and a ferocious appetite for literature.

It's desperation that finally forces her to throw her usual game plan out the window. Piper never seemed too impressed with the money and the clubs, with the crowds of people, but when they were alone just talking Alex could see that whatever it was she was feeling, Piper felt it too.

"Come over tonight, to my place." She holds the phone in the crook of her neck, bites her lip while she waits for a reply.

"You throwing a dinner party or something?"

Alex thinks about lying for a second, ignores the impulse ultimately. "Can you call it a dinner party if there's just the one guest?"

Piper's silent for a second, just the quiet hum of static audible. "No, I don't think they call that a dinner party." It's unspoken, but Alex hears the 'They call that a date" anyway.

"No, I guess they don't." Alex takes a deep breath, keeps her voice casual. "So eight? I'll text you the address."

It feels like an eternity before she hears Piper's quiet voice.

"Okay."

/

Piper's not stupid.

Sure she's blonde and she has her vapid moments, but she's more than capable of putting two and two together. Alex is enthralling, vibrant, exciting and passionate, and there's something very magnetic about her that pulls at Piper in a way she's never experienced with another person before, but Alex has a lot of money for someone who doesn't seem to have any kind of legitimate job at all.

When they're out at clubs or bars with Alex's ever present gaggle of girls, she's always the one footing the bill. Drinks, pills, whatever party favors any one of them wants, Alex gives without question. They talk about places they've been, about Thailand, South America and Europe, about parties and jobs, never quite fully explaining what _kind_ of jobs. Then Piper thinks of that first night, thinks of Alex looking her straight in the eye and telling her she works for an international drug cartel.

So Piper's not stupid, but she's also not being as smart as she should be, because despite Alex's dubious work situation and the ever present women that Piper is in no way comfortable with (she doesn't really share well) she's not staying away.

Case in point; she's in front of Alex's apartment door in a blue dress that she knows makes her eyes pop and accentuates her figure, to have a dinner date with a possible drug dealer who most likely doesn't do monogamy. Not that Piper's looking to get married or something exactly, but whatever it is between them, this undercurrent of want and possibility, it feels permanent. Inevitable. So the women bother her, because, well, she _really_ doesn't share well.

She knocks anyway.

She knocks, because when it's just the two of them, whether they're sipping coffee on a bench somewhere people watching, or dancing pressed so closely together that her world shrinks down to Alex's eyes locked on her own, she's happy. Incredibly, insanely and deliriously happy.

"You look beautiful." There's no greeting, just the words accompanied with a warm look down her dress. She preens a bit.

"I know, right?" It makes Alex laugh, lips wide and eyes slightly crinkled behind her glasses and Piper's stomach does a little dip.

"Come in, dinner should be ready in a few. I've got wine ready if you want some?" Alex leads her in, hand gentle on her elbow.

"Sure, thanks." Piper doesn't say much else, just takes in the table set in the corner. Notes the candles and soft music, Otis Redding she thinks, the smell of what could be pasta sauce in the air.

Alex settles her on an overstuffed couch and comes back with wine and two glasses, fills them and sits down, knee gently brushing Piper's when she takes a sip of her wine.

"This is really lovely, thank you." Piper doesn't mean the wine, hopes Alex gets that.

"It's my pleasure. I wanted to do something…" She trails off, either at a loss for words or shy, neither something Piper would ever really associate with Alex.

"Something nice?"

Alex shakes her head, looks at her in that way that has Piper wanting _so_ much. Things she can't even really put in words yet.

"No, just special, something special for you." Alex avoids her gaze, fiddles with the black rims of her glasses and takes a sip of her wine.

Piper tries to keep her breathing even, tries to ignore exactly how hard her heart is beating.

"Why?"

Alex stills completely for a second, wine glass halfway to her mouth before she sighs softly and puts it down to face Piper.

"Because you're different and I like you."

It's kind of exactly what Piper wants to hear, as simple a statement as it is. She doesn't know what to say to that though, doesn't know how to choose between her heart and her head. Alex chooses for her though when she gets up and extends a slender hand to her.

"Dance with me, please?" It's the please that gets her.

She takes the offered hand without a further thought and lets herself be pulled in close. They barely move at all, just sway gently as Otis Redding sings of loving arms. They dance for a long time, Alex's hands warm on her back, fingers tracing the notches of her spine while Piper holds her by the hips, her forehead tucked up against Alex's shoulder and neck. She loves the smell of her, warm and surprisingly soft, loves the feel of her skin faintly against her lips.

When Alex slides a hand up and into her hair, tugging gently, she knows what's coming. She doesn't stop it, despite all the reasons she has to do just that, simply tilts her head up and closes her eyes, holds her breath in anticipation.

Alex kisses her slowly; mouth a hot, but surprisingly soft pressure against her lips. She finds it hard to concentrate on one thing though, her mind awash with different sensations as Alex settles a hand on her hip, fingers squeezing unconsciously hard, and her other hand scratches gently at the back of her neck. Piper can't help the moan or the way she kind of tugs at Alex's bottom lip, but it escalates things drastically.

There are hands everywhere then, from hips to breasts to faces and thighs. Piper wants to feel her everywhere, wants to taste and touch and can't settle her hands or mouth on one place long enough to actually satisfy any of those desires.

"I can't believe we waited this long to do this." Alex mutters it into the flesh of her half exposed shoulder, breath a moist heat against her skin.

"There was a good reason for that." Piper doesn't mean it as an accusation, but Alex seems to take it as one anyway, because there's a sudden lack of kissing going on that Piper does _not_ approve of.

"I…look, I know we need to talk about some things…" Piper doesn't give Alex time to finish, because she made up her mind about this right around the time she picked her hottest dress for this dinner if she's honest with herself.

"I don't care. As long as I'm not a part of it, I really just don't care." She takes a breath then, meets Alex's eyes and kisses her, promises things with her lips that she's not sure either of them are ready for. When she thinks she's made her point she pulls back, lays a hand against Alex's cheek. "Okay?"

Alex for her part just nods and squeezes her middle once to emphasize her agreement.

"Okay, good. Now is this a bad time to tell you I think something's burning in the kitchen?"

When Alex curses and scrambles for the kitchen Piper just laughs and follows, knowing that whatever happens in the future she can't help but think it'll totally be worth it.

_So there we go, hope it was okay. Flame or praise away, I don't mind either way. _


End file.
